FIVE men have been jailed for their part in a series of nationwide lorry thefts which drove a Middlewich haulier out of business.

Bennions Transport of Brooks Lane, Middlewich was forced to cease trading after it was targeted three times by the West Midlands-based gang, which stole 13 lorries with loads valued at more than £360,000.

The business was first targeted in August 1999, when culprits stole a trailer and cab valued at £75,000 and goods worth £45,117 from the lorry compound. The empty lorry was found abandoned in Birmingham, but the goods were never recovered.

Bennions was next hit a month later, when another £75,000 cab and trailer containing tea worth £30,000 was stolen.

The lorry compound was broken into yet again a month later, when a trailer valued at £18,000 and £25,000 worth of sugar was stolen.

The gang also took a cab and trailer valued at £65,000, along with its load of furniture and household goods worth £107,611, from a hauliers at Brooks Lane Smithy in February 2000.

The gang was finally tracked down after raiding another Middlewich haulage business, WD Sheeran Ltd, of Nantwich Road. The thieves took a lorry and trailer, later discovered abandoned on the motorway network of the West Midlands, and £20,000 worth of tinned groceries.

The load was discovered at a Worcester farm owned by Tony Webley after a tracker device on the lorry showed it had spent time there. And while officers were searching the farm, gang members Mark Parkes, Andrew Parkes and Jason Cresswell arrived.

On Friday at Worcester Crown Court, Andrew Parkes and Cresswell, together with Webley, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal.

Mark Parkes pleaded not guilty but was convicted.

Cresswell, Mark Parkes and Andrew Parkes were all jailed for five years.

Webley, who pleaded guilty to handling as well as conspiracy to steal, was given three years.

Another man, Jugjit Singh Sunar, pleaded guilty to handling and received a two-year jail term.